Education grant
A panel overseeing hedge fund giant Ray Dalio's $100 million philanthropic investment in Connecticut schools would be exempt from ethics and disclosure laws. The provision was included in the new two-year state budget approved last week.
Legislators learned what conditions come with the $100 million contribution hedge fund giant Ray Dalio’s philanthropic foundation is making to Connecticut’s underprivileged school children.
Foundation representatives overseeing how that money — and a matching $100 million in taxpayer money — are spent would be exempt from key ethics and disclosure rules.
The provision was included in the new two-year state budget Gov. Ned Lamont negotiated with his fellow Democrats in the House and Senate majorities. The House approved it Monday and the Senate adopted it Tuesday.
“These corporate board-holders are going to go up to the balcony and sprinkle down dollars on, I guess, the peasants of Connecticut, and we’re supposed to be happy about that?” said Deputy House Minority Leader Vincent J. Candelora, R-North Branford.
Lamont spokesman Rob Blanchard responded that “the Dalio Foundation has partnered with the state for a historic investment that will support, encourage, and mentor our young people so they can achieve their greatest potential.”
The new budget creates a nonprofit corporation, the Partnership For Connecticut Inc., that will oversee expenditure of
this $200 million over the next five years, and possibly another $100 million the panel will attempt to raise from other private donors.
The corporation’s oversight board includes five state officials: the governor, the House speaker, Senate president pro tem, and the House and Senate minority leaders.
Lamont would appoint three other members and the Dalio Foundation would name four. The 13th member, the corporation president, would be hired by the board.
But the bill states “no member of the board of directors or any officer or employee of the corporation shall be (1) a state employee or public official” as defined in the Code of Ethics or the statute restricting state contractors from making political con
tributions.
It also states “The corporation shall not be construed to be a department, institution, public agency, public instrumentality or political subdivision of the state, or to perform any governmental function.”
Candelora charged this effectively exempts the corporation from the Freedom of Information Act, the ethics code, or the state’s contracting standards.
“Since when are tax dollars not subject to complete transparency?” he asked during a break in the debate. “The governor has created a diversion of taxpayer revenues into a corporation that can spend money in the shadows. … I would be shocked if any legislative leader would honor this cloak of secrecy.”
Lamont spokeswoman Maribel La Luz noted there would be regular public reports on the partnerships expenditures, fundraising efforts and the success of its initiatives.
But the language did raise some concerns among Democratic lawmakers as well.
Rep. Toni Walker, DNew Haven, co-chairwoman of the Appropriation Committee said, she wants to revisit the disclosure issue.
“I look forward to having more conversations about this,” Walker said. “I never want to turn away money that’s going to go to education, that’s going to improve the lives of the special urban communities. I think we do need to figure out how it’s going to be structured and what are going to be the transparency measures that are necessary for the citizens of Connecticut to be in support of it.”
The Dalio Foundation declined to comment.